Throat

Pronunciation

• RP IPA: /ˈθɹəʊt/
• GenAm IPA: /ˈθɹoÊŠt/
• Rhymes: -əʊt

Alternative forms

• throate, throte all obsolete

Origin

From Middle English throte, from Old English þrote, þrota, þrotu ("throat"), from Proto-Germanic *þrutō ("throat"), from Proto-Indo-European *trud- ("to swell, become stiff"). Cognate with Dutch strot ("throat"), German Droß ("throat"), Icelandic þroti ("swelling").

Full definition of throat

Noun

1. The front part of the neck.
   The wild pitch bounced and hit the catcher in the throat.
• 1910, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price Chapter 1, Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes....She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
2. The gullet or windpipe.
   As I swallowed I felt something strange in my throat.
3. A narrow opening in a vessel.
   The water leaked out from the throat of the bottle.
4. Station throat.
5. The part of a chimney between the gathering, or portion of the funnel which contracts in ascending, and the flue.
6. (nautical) The upper fore corner of a boom-and-gaff sail, or of a staysail.
7. (nautical) That end of a gaff which is next the mast.
8. (nautical) The angle where the arm of an anchor is joined to the shank.
9. (shipbuilding) The inside of a timber knee.
10. (botany) The orifice of a tubular organ; the outer end of the tube of a monopetalous corolla; the faux, or fauces.

Synonyms

• (gullet) esophagus US, gullet, oesophagus British
• (windpipe) trachea, windpipe
• (narrow opening in a vessel) neck, bottleneck of a bottle

Derived terms

Related terms

• throttle

Verb

1. (obsolete) To utter in the throat; to mutter.to throat threats
2. (UK, dialect, obsolete) To mow (beans, etc.) in a direction against their bending.